"Among the treasure troves of recently released WikiLeaks cables, we find one whose significance has bypassed Swedish media. In short: every law proposal, every ordinance, and every governmental report hostile to the net, youth, and civil liberties here in Sweden in recent years have been commissioned by the US government and industry interests." How such prestigious nations with such long and proud histories, like Sweden, The Netherlands, and so on, can succumb to pressure from a former colony is beyond me. We should know better.

The conditions of areas themselves also play a role in long term developments... for one example, tropical diseases certainly were a major limiting factor (vs. temperate north) for Latin America well into XX century.

(with Church it was also less clear then you make it out to be, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_Reductions ...and note I'm generally the first to point out the idiocies of Vatican - firmly standing behind silly mythologies not even being the worst; or: "around early 1500" wasn't really when the colonisation started, the times were much more comparable; those "amazing civilisations" were also decimating themselves quite successfully, Spaniards just took one side; or: the, yes, "piraty" British created quite a headache for Spanish shipping down the line; or: north was also largely French)